Category: UNCATEGORIZED

While the launch of a $50 million venture capital fund by the shipping, logistics, and truck rental company Ryder System may have seemed like an odd strategic move, it’s actually the culmination of roughly three years of investment activity from the Florida-based company.

Ryder’s push to create its own venture fund is actually part of a broader trend among corporations who have used the COVID-19 epidemic in the US as an opportunity to start investing in startups — even as a large portion of the population struggles to find work.

And it’s one that is vital for a company like Ryder, which has seen investments into new technology in its once sleepy little industry top $6 billion, according to company executives. That’s a massive figure promoting new tech development in a business where Excel spreadsheets used to be considered state of the art.

Ryder’s not alone in recognizing the need to get in front of technological innovations before an upstart comes along and puts well-established businesses in the rearview mirror.

Over the first half of 2020, 368 corporations made their first investments into startup companies, according to data from the industry analytics provider, Global Corporate Venturing. It’s a broad shift from the last corporate investment boom and bust period twenty years ago where large corporations were some of the last investors in the tech industry and the first to pull their capital out.

And the amount of first time investors into corporate venturing is nearly double the previous surge in corporate backing in the third quarter of 2019, when 177 new companies made their first investments in venture capital.

Ryder has worked with the venture firms Autotech Ventures and the corporate innovation and accelerator Plug and Play as a limited partner, but the new $50 million fund is its first direct investment vehicle for venture.

“We had a strategic directive from our board of directors and our CEO to begin to look at the disruption confronting our industry and to understand better how to navigate those waters,” said Karen Jones, the executive vice president and head of new product development at the logistics company. “Everybody was reading all about blockchain and automation and electric vehicles ad autonomous vehicles and asset sharing.” 

Transportation and logistics historically didn’t cross paths much with the tech industry — but the advent of globally connected mobile devices; improved, miniaturized sensing technologies; increasing vehicular automation; and accelerating delivery demands from customers have pushed the “sleepy little industry” as Jones called into a period of hyper-adoption.

“There’s just been a ripe opportunity in our particular industry to disrupt it with the technology that’s available,” said Jones. “[And] if we’re going to be disrupted let’s get in front of it and turn it into an opportunity instead of a threat.”

At Ryder, the emphasis seems to be on creating an investment structure with as much flexibility as possible.

The venture firm doesn’t have a cap on its commitments to deals. The only real solid commitment is that it’s looking to spend $50 million over the next five years.

The company will likely invest in technologies like: last-mile deliveries, asset sharing, electric vehicles, autonomous vehicles, and next generation data, analytics, and machine learning technologies, Jones said. But even there, Ryder doesn’t want to limit itself.

“We want to entertain other thoughts. Maybe we haven’t thought of everything,” Jones said. 

There are four people on the company’s investment team working alongside Jones: Rich Mohr, the chief technology officer for fleet management; Kendra Philips, the chief technology officer for the company’s supply chain business; Bob Brunn, the vice president of investor relations and corporate strategy; and Mike Plasencia, the director of finance for the company.

They’ll report up to the CEO and CFO and confer with presidents of different business units on potential portfolio investments, Jones said.

Companies in the portfolio will be judged both on their potential strategic value to the company and on their potential for economic returns, said Jones.

For startups, that potentially means access to Ryder’s 50,000 customers. “The ability to help a startup test out and prove their technology and help us improve efficiencies is a great benefit to both sides,” Jones said. 

 

Nestlé USA just announced that it has acquired Freshly for $1.5 billion — $950 million plus potential earnouts of up to $550 million based on future growth.

Freshly is a New York City-based startup that offers healthy meals that can be prepared in a few minutes via microwave or oven, delivered to your home in weekly orders. So you get the benefit of fresh, healthy meals but — unlike the offerings from meal kit startups — you don’t have to spend a lot of time cooking them yourself.

If anything, this sounds even more appealing now, as so many of us are stuck at home, preparing most of our meals for ourselves. According to Nestlé’s press release, Freshly is now shipping more than 1 million meals per week across 48 states, with forecasted sales of $430 million for 2020.

The startup raised a total of $107 million from investors including Highland Capital Partners, White Star Capital, Insight Venture Partners and Nestlé itself, which led the Series C in 2017. Today’s announcement describes the earlier investment as giving the food and beverage giant a 16% stake in Freshly and serving as “a strategic move to evaluate and test the burgeoning market.”

“Consumers are embracing ecommerce and eating at home like never before,” said Nestlé USA Chairman and CEO Steve Presley in a statement. “It’s an evolution brought on by the pandemic but taking hold for the long term. Freshly is an innovative, fast-growing, food-tech startup, and adding them to the portfolio accelerates our ability to capitalize on the new realities in the U.S. food market and further positions Nestlé to win in the future.”

In a note to customers, Freshly co-founder and CEO Michael Wystrach said that the company’s offerings won’t change dramatically, although it will triple the number of menu items offered each week. He continued:

I can assure you that your meals, pricing, and subscription will remain just as you know them. Freshly will continue to operate as a standalone business to accomplish our core mission to remove the barriers to healthy eating with convenient, nutritious and delicious meal solutions, backed by the power of Nestlé to open new doors for a fresher, faster food delivery to your door. We will continue to maintain our own strict standards and maintain complete control of our products. Our meals will not be changing, and there are no plans to change ingredients or integrate Nestlé products into Freshly meals, but we are excited about potential opportunities for the future.

Major Internet platforms will be required to open up their algorithms to regulatory oversight under proposals European lawmakers are set to introduce next month.

In a speech today Commission EVP Margrethe Vestager suggested algorithmic accountability will be a key plank of the forthcoming legislative digital package — with draft rules incoming that will require platforms to explain how their recommendation systems work as well as offering users more control over them.

“The rules we’re preparing would give all digital services a duty to cooperate with regulators. And the biggest platforms would have to provide more information on the way their algorithms work, when regulators ask for it,” she said, adding that platforms will also “have to give regulators and researchers access to the data they hold — including ad archives”.

While social media platforms like Facebook have set up ad archives ahead of any regulatory requirement to do so there are ongoing complaints from third party researchers about how the information is structured and how (in)accessible it is to independent study.

More information for users around ad targeting is another planned requirement, along with greater reporting requirements for platforms to explain content moderation decisions, per Vestager — who also gave a preview of what’s coming down the pipe in the Digital Services Act and Digital Markets Act in another speech earlier this week.

Regional lawmakers are responding to concerns that ‘blackbox’ algorithms can have damaging effects on individuals and societies — flowing from how they process data and order and rank information, with risks such as discrimination, amplification of bias and abusive targeting of vulnerable individuals and groups.

The Commission has said it’s working on binding transparency rules with the aim of forcing tech giants to take more responsibility for the content their platforms amplify and monetize. Although the devil will be in both the detail of the requirements and how effectively they will be enforced — but a draft of the plan is due next month.

“One of the main goals of the Digital Services Act that we’ll put forward in December will be to protect our democracy, by making sure that platforms are transparent about the way these algorithms work – and make those platforms more accountable for the decisions they make,” said Vestager in a speech today at an event organized by not-for-profit research advocacy group AlgorithmWatch.

“The proposals that we’re working on would mean platforms have to tell users how their recommender systems decide which content to show – so it’s easier for us to judge whether to trust the picture of the world that they give us or not.”

Under the planned rules the most powerful Internet platforms — so-called ‘gatekeepers’ in EU parlance — will have to provide regular reports on “the content moderation tools they use, and the accuracy and results of those tools”, as Vestager put it.

There will also be specific disclosure requirements for ad targeting that go beyond the current fuzzy disclosures that platforms like Facebook may already offer (in its case via the ‘why am I seeing this ad?’ menu).

“Better information” will have to be provided, she said, such as platforms telling users “who placed a certain ad, and why it’s been targeted at us”. The overarching aim will be to ensure users of such platforms have “a better idea of who’s trying to influence us — and a better chance of spotting when algorithms are discriminating against us,” she added. 

Today a coalition of 46 civic society organizations led by AlgorithmWatch urged the Commission to make sure transparency requirements in the forthcoming legislation are “meaningful” — calling for it to introduce “comprehensive data access frameworks” that provide watchdogs with the tools they need to hold platforms accountable, as well as to enable journalists, academics, and civil society to “challenge and scrutinize power”.

The group’s set of recommendations call for binding disclosure obligations based on the technical functionalities of dominant platforms; a single EU institution “with a clear legal mandate to enable access to data and to enforce transparency obligations”; and provisions to ensure data collection complies with EU data protection rules.

Another way to rebalance the power asymmetry between data-mining platform giants and the individuals who they track, profile and target could involve requirements to let users switch off algorithmic feeds entirely if they wish — opting out of the possibility of data-driven discrimination or manipulation. But it remains to be seen whether EU lawmakers will go that far in the forthcoming legislative proposals.

The only hints Vestager offered on this front was to say that the planned rules “will also give more power to users — so algorithms don’t have the last word about what we get to see, and what we don’t get to see”.

Platforms will also have to give users “the ability to influence the choices that recommender systems make on our behalf”, she also said.

In further remarks she confirmed there will be more detailed reporting requirements for digital services around content moderation and takedowns — saying they will have to tell users when they take content down, and give them “effective rights to challenge that removal”. While there is widespread public support across the bloc for rebooting the rules of play for digital giants there are also strongly held views that regulation should not impinge on online freedom of expression — such as by encouraging platforms to shrink their regulatory risk by applying upload filters or removing controversial content without a valid reason.

The proposals will need the support of EU Member States, via the European Council, and elected representatives in the European parliament.

The latter has already voted in support of tighter rules on ad targeting. MEPs also urged the Commission to reject the use of upload filters or any form of ex-ante content control for harmful or illegal content, saying the final decision on whether content is legal or not should be taken by an independent judiciary.

Simultaneously the Commission is working on shaping rules specifically for applications that use artificial intelligence — but that legislative package is not due until next year.

Vestager confirmed that will be introduced early in 2021 with the aim of creating “an AI ecosystem of trust”.

Facebook today confirmed that it will be limiting the distribution of the hashtag “save our children.” Over the past several months, the phrase — and ones like it — have become associated with QAnon. As a popular splinter group, these terms have served to provide a kind of innocuous cover for the popular online conspiracy theory.

A spokesperson for the social network confirmed the move today, noting that child safety resources will be prioritized in search above those potentially tied to QAnon.

“Earlier this week, we stepped up how we enforce our rules against QAnon on pages, events, and groups,” a spokesperson told TechCrunch. “Starting today, we’re limiting the distribution of the ‘save our children’ hashtag given we’ve found that content tied to it is now associated with QAnon. When people search for it, they will now see the credible child safety resources.”

The company finally took action to remove the constellation of dangerous conspiracy theories with a ban on QAnon content across both Facebook and Instagram. It  had previously announced a ban on QAnon groups that “discussed potential violence” but the expanded ban evinced a deeper understanding of how conspiracies draw in and radicalize regular users. The ban has actually proven quite successful so far, making it more more difficult for QAnon-related posts and accounts to be discovered and amplified.

Over the summer, the service began to crack down on QAnon-adjacent hashtags like SaveTheChildren. It even went so far as temporarily blocking the phrase, which, for around a century, has been associated with nonprofit youth organizations. “We temporarily blocked the hashtag as it was surfacing low-quality content,” Facebook told the press at the time. “The hashtag has since been restored, and we will continue to monitor for content that violates our community standards.”

By then, however, the movement had already gained life beyond social media, with several well-attended rallies being held across the U.S. and in different locations across the globe. Organizers have broadly purported to be protesting child exploitation, ranging from accusations of pedophilia among the Hollywood elite to outrage over the Netflix film “Cuties.”

In August, the U.S.-based Save the Children Federation, Inc. released a statement seeking to clarify and distance itself from the trend. “Our name in hashtag form has been experiencing unusually high volumes and causing confusion among our supporters and the general public,” the org wrote. “In the United States, Save the Children is the sole owner of the registered trademark ‘Save the Children.’ While people may choose to use our organization’s name as a hashtag to make their point on different issues, we are not affiliated or associated with any of these campaigns.”

Facebook’s crackdown on QAnon and adjacent #SaveTheChildren content come after the company allowed the dangerous conspiracy theory group to thrive on its platform for years, moving from the fringes of online life into its center. While President Trump and a handful of QAnon-friendly Republican political figures have given the conspiracies a boost, mainstream social networks allowed adherents to ferry the revelations of so-called “Q drops” from the obscure and often extreme message board 8chan into the center of American political life.

Some users happen upon conspiracy content organically, but algorithmic recommendations on platforms like Facebook and YouTube are known to usher users from the edges of conspiracies like QAnon into their often more extreme core ideas. Dedicated QAnon believers are responsible for a number of real-world violent actions, including an armed occupation of the Hoover Dam. Matthew Wright, the man who pled guilty to a terrorism charge for blocking the bridge, explained in a video that his agitation stemmed from President Trump’s failure to arrest his political enemies, which disappointed QAnon believers. Last year, a 29-year-old QAnon adherent shot and killed a mob boss who he believed was part of the “deep state” — a frequent preoccupation of Q followers.

In 2015, then-Twitter product manager Terri Burns penned a piece about staying optimistic despite the sexism and racism that exists expansively within tech. “America has broke my heart countless times, but I believe that technology can be a tool to mend some of the woes of the world and produce tools to better humanity,” she wrote.

“It’s hard to continue to believe this when the industry holding this power takes so little interest in the basic rights of women and people of color. I actively choose to remain hopeful under the belief that myself and many of the incredible people also working toward equality and justice in technology and in America will make a difference.”

Burns left Twitter in 2017 to join GV, formerly known as Google Ventures. Her hope has now been met with recognition. GV has promoted Terri Burns to partner, making her the first Black woman to hold that role — and the youngest ever. Making history comes with its own set of pressures and spotlight, but Burns seems focused on simply finding a new place to put her optimism and hope: Gen Z.

Read on for a Q&A with Burns about her investment thesis, role change and plans as partner.

TechCrunch: Before you were in venture, you held product roles at Venmo and Twitter. When did you know that computer science was the right field for you? 

Terri Burns: I grew up in Southern California, in Long Beach. And I think I’ve always just been a really curious kid. For me, I always spent a ton of time just asking questions and I always liked science. But, I actually did not have any interest in computer science until college.

I went to NYU and I remember thinking my freshman year, major-wise, that I’m not entirely sure what it is that I want to do. By chance, I happened to apply to this program called Google BOLD. It was a week-long program for people that are a little bit too young for a full-time internship. There we just talked about all the opportunities at Google that were not engineering.

It’s funny, I grew up in California, but growing in Long Beach, I didn’t know anything about Silicon Valley whatsoever. College was really the first time I had an introduction to Silicon Valley, to technology, to entrepreneurship, to Google. Even though [Google BOLD] was a nontechnical program, I was “I want to know what this coding thing is about.” So my sophomore year, when I went back to campus, I took my first computer science class. And that was the beginning.

What’s the most effective way to get on your radar without knowing you prior? Any anecdotes for how out of network founders grabbed your attention?

Yes! In fact, I met Suraya Shivji, the CEO of HAGS, through Twitter. I knew people who were buzzing about the company on Twitter, and I proactively reached out to her to do a virtual coffee. Social media, networking events and warm intros are pretty good paths. For what it’s worth, I read every cold email I receive as well; I’m just not able to respond to all of them!

What kind of companies will you always take a meeting with?

Mobile consumer and consumer in general is definitely what my background is in, and so I’ll always have a natural inclination
in consumer. I recognize that that’s broad, but I think software consumer companies are ones that I know and I understand. So that’s something I’m always going to lean into. One of the things that I really love about GV is that we are a generalist firm, which has also been a theme for me personally and something that I definitely want to uphold as an investor. Some other things that I’m interested in [are] fintech on the enterprise side and [ … ] enterprise collaboration tools.

It wasn’t the lingering exhaustion that made Christine Huang, a New York public school teacher, leave the profession. Or the low pay. Or the fact that she rarely had time to spend with her kids after the school day due to workload demands.

Instead, Huang left teaching after seven years because of how New York City handled the coronavirus pandemic in schools.

“Honestly, I have no confidence in the city,” she says. Tensions between educators and NYC officials grew over the past few weeks, as school openings were delayed twice and staffing shortages continue. In late September, the union representing NYC’s principals called on the state to take control of the situation, slamming Mayor de Blasio for his inability to offer clear guidance.

Now, schools are open and the number of positive coronavirus cases are surprisingly low. Still, Huang says there’s a lack of grace given to teachers in this time.

Huang wanted the flexibility to work from home to take care of her kids who could no longer get daycare. But her school said that, while kids have the choice on whether or not to come into class, teachers do not. She gave her notice days later.

There are more than 3 million public school teachers in the United States. Over the years, thousands have left the system due to low pay and rigid hours. But the coronavirus is a different kind of stress test. As schools seesaw between open and closed, some teachers are left without direction, feeling undervalued and underutilized. The confusion could usher numbers of other teachers out of the field, and massively change the teacher economy as we know it.

Teacher departures are a loss for public schools, but an opportunity for startups racing to win a share of the changing teacher economy. Companies don’t have the same pressures as entire school districts, and thus are able to give teachers a way to teach on more flexible hours. As for salaries, edtech benefits from going directly to consumers, making money less of a budget challenge and more of a sell to parents’ wallets.

There’s Outschool, which allows teachers to lead small-group classes on subjects such as algebra, beginner reading or even mindfulness for kids; Varsity Tutor, which connects educators to K-12 students in need of extra help; and companies such as Swing and Prisma that focus on pod-based learning taught by teachers.

The startups all have different versions of the same pitch: they can offer teachers more money, and flexibility, than the status quo.

Underpaid and overworked teachers

There’s a large geographic discrepancy in pay among teachers. Salaries are decided on a state-by-state and district-by-district level. According to the National Center for Education Statistics, a teacher who works in Mississippi makes an average of $45,574 annually, while a teacher in New York makes an average of $82,282 annually.

Although cost of living factors impacts teacher salaries like any other profession, data shows that teachers are underpaid as a profession. According to a study from the Economic Policy Institute, teachers earn 19% less than similarly skilled and educated professionals. A 2018 study by the Department of Education shows that full-time public school teachers are earning less on average, in inflation-adjusted dollars, than they earned in 1990.

The variance of salaries among teachers means that there’s room, and a need, for rebalancing. Startups, looking to get a slice of the teacher economy, suddenly can form an entire pitch around these discrepancies. What if a company can help a Mississippi teacher make a wage similar to a New York teacher?

Reach Capital is a venture capital firm whose partners invest in education technology companies. Jennifer Carolan, co-founder of the firm, who also worked in the Chicago Public School system for years, sees coronavirus as an accelerator, not a trigger, for the departure of teachers.

“We have a system and education system where teachers are underpaid, overworked, and you don’t have the flexibility that has become so important for workers now,” she said. “All these things have caused teachers to seek opportunity outside of the traditional schooling system.”

Carolan, who penned an op-ed about teachers leaving the public school system, says that new pathways for teachers are emerging out of the homeschooling tech sector. One of her investments, Outschool, has helped teachers earn tens of millions this year alone, as the total addressable market for what it means to be “homeschooled” changed overnight.

Gig economy powered by startups

Education technology services have created a teacher gig economy over the past few years. Learning platforms, with unprecedented demand, must attract teachers to their service with one of two deal sweeteners: higher wages or more flexible hours.

Outschool is a platform that sells small-group classes led by teachers on a large expanse of topics, from Taylor Swift Spanish class to engineering lessons through Lego challenges. In the past year, teachers on Outschool have made more than $40 million in aggregate, up from $4 million in total earnings the year prior.

CEO Amir Nathoo estimates that teachers are able to make between $40 to $60 per hour, up from an average of $30 per hour in earnings in traditional public schools. Outschool itself has surged over 2,000% in new bookings, and recently turned its first profit.

Outschool makes more money if teachers join the platform full-time: teachers pocket 70% of the price they set for classes, while Outschool gets the other 30% of income. But, Nathoo views the platform as more of a supplement to traditional education. Instead of scaling revenue by convincing teachers to come on full-time, the CEO is growing by adding more part-time teachers to the platform.

The company has added 10,000 vetted teachers to its platform, up from 1,000 in March.

Outschool competitor Varsity Tutors is taking a different approach entirely, focusing less on hyperscaling its teacher base and more on slow, gradual growth. In August, Varsity Tutors launched a homeschooling offering meant to replace traditional school. It onboarded 120 full-time educators, who came from public schools and charter schools, with competitive salaries. It has no specific plans to hire more full-time teachers.

Brian Galvin, chief academic officer at Varsity Tutors, said that teachers came seeking more flexibility in hours. On the platform, teachers instruct for five to six hours per day, in blocks that they choose, and can build schedules around caregiver obligations or other jobs.

Varsity Tutors’ strategy is one version of pod-based learning, which gained traction a few months ago as an alternative to traditional schooling. Swing Education, a startup that used to help schools hire substitute teachers, pivoted to help connect those same teachers to full-time pod gigs. Prisma is another alternative school that trains former educators, from public and private schools, to become learning coaches.

Pod-based learning, which can in some cases cost thousands a week, was popular among wealthy families and even led to bidding wars for best teacher talent. It also was met with criticism, suggesting the product wasn’t built with most students in mind.

The reality of next job

A tech-savvy future where students can learn through the touch of a button, and where teachers can rack in higher earnings, is edtech’s goal. But that path is not accessible for all.

Some tutoring startups could create a digital divide among students who can pay for software and those who can’t. If teachers leave public schools, low-income students are left behind and high-income students are able to pay their way into supplemental learning.

Still, some don’t think it’s the job of public school teachers, the vast majority of which are female, to work for a broken system. In fact, some say that the whole concept of villainizing public school teachers for leaving the system comes with ingrained sexism that women have to settle for less. In this framework, startups are both a bridge to a better future for teachers and a symptom of failures from the public educational systems.

Huang, now on the job hunt, says that the opportunities that edtech companies are creating aren’t built for traditional teachers, even though they’re billed as such. So far, she has applied to curriculum design jobs at educational content website BrainPop, digital learning platform Newsela, math program company Zearn and Q&A content host Mystery.org.

“What I’m finding is that a lot of edtech companies don’t seem to value our skills as teachers,” she said. “They’re not looking for teachers, they’re looking for coders.”

Edtech has been forced to meet increasing demand for services in a relatively short time. But the scalability could inherently clash with what teachers came to the profession to do. Suddenly, their work becomes optimized for venture-scale returns, not general education. Huang feels the tension in her job interviews, where she feels like recruiters don’t pay attention to creativity, knowledge and human skills needed for managing students. She has created 30 different versions of her resume.

The lack of suitable jobs made Huang decide to go on childcare leave instead of quitting the education system entirely, in case she needs to return to the traditional field. She hopes that is not the case, but isn’t optimistic just yet.

“I haven’t gotten a whole lot of interviews, because people see my resume; they see that I’m a teacher, and they automatically write me off,” she said.

VC firm e.ventures is expanding its footprint in Europe with a new office in Paris as well as a new Paris-based partner. Jonathan Userovici, who previously worked for Idinvest Partners, is joining e.ventures as partner and head of Paris office.

Originally founded in the U.S. 20 years ago, e.ventures has been expanding to new geographies over the past few years. It has offices in San Francisco, Berlin, Beijing, Tokyo, São Paulo, and now Paris.

Last year, the firm raised two new funds — the first one was a $225 million U.S.-focused fund and the second one was a $175 million fund based in Berlin and focused on Europe. The Paris team will deploy some capital in French startups with a sweet spot between €1 million and €10 million.

Over the past two decades, e.ventures has handled around 200 investments. Some of the most successful investments include funding rounds in Farfetch, Groupon, Sonos and Segment.

As for Jonathan Userovici, after five years at Idinvest Partners, he has been involved with some promising French startups. For instance, he is a board member at Swile and Ornikar.

Thanks to e.ventures’ distributed team, the VC firm hopes it can spot good investment opportunities in Europe and help them scale globally. The firm already has connections in the U.S., which should help French entrepreneurs when it comes to signing new deals and international expansion.

Daimler’s trucks division has invested in lidar developer Luminar as part of a broader partnership to produce autonomous trucks capable of navigating highways without a human driver behind the wheel.

The deal, which comes just days after Daimler and Waymo announced plans to work together to build an autonomous version of the Freightliner Cascadia truck, is the latest action by the German manufacturer to move away from robotaxis and shared mobility and instead focus on how automated vehicle technology can be applied to freight.

The undisclosed investment by Daimler is in addition to the $170 million that Luminar raised as part of its merger with special purpose acquisition company Gores Metropoulos Inc. Luminar will become a publicly traded company through its merger with Gores, which is expected to close in late 2020.

Daimler is taking two tracks on its mission to commercialize autonomous trucks. The company has been working internally to develop a truck capable of Level 4 automation — an industry term that means the system can handle all aspects of driving without human intervention in certain conditions and environments such as highways. That work has accelerated since spring 2019 when Daimler took a majority stake in Torc Robotics, an autonomous trucking startup that had been working with Luminar the past two years. Lidar, the light detection and ranging radar that measures distance using laser light to generate a highly accurate 3D map of the world around the car, is considered a critical piece of hardware to deploy automated vehicle technology safely and at scale.

The plan is to integrate Torc’s self-driving system, along with Luminar’s sensors, into a Freightliner Cascadia truck as well as build out an operations and network center to run automated trucks. Daimler Trucks’ and Torc’s integrated self-driving product will be designed for on-highway hub-to-hub applications, especially for long-distance, monotonous transport between distribution centers, according to Daimler.

Meanwhile, Daimler Trucks is developing a customized Freightliner Cascadia truck chassis with redundant systems to allow Waymo to integrate its self-driving system. In this case, the software development stays in house at Waymo; Daimler is just concentrating on the chassis development.

This dual approach puts Daimler’s ambitions at center stage, which is to have series-production L4 trucks on highways globally. The deal also provides a clearer view of Luminar’s strategy of focusing on what its founder Austin Russell believes are the most likely and shortest paths to commercialized automated vehicles, and in turn, a profitable company.

“Our focus has really been always centered around highway autonomy use cases, which are specifically applicable to passenger vehicles as well as trucks,” Russell said in a recent interview, adding that the aim is to have a product that you can put into series production in a cost-effective capacity.

Luminar has already publicly announced one deal with an automaker to pursue the passenger vehicle use case. Volvo said in May it will start producing vehicles in 2022 that are equipped with lidar and a perception stack developed by Luminar that the automaker will use to deploy an automated driving system for highways. This deal with Daimler locks in the second use case.

“I absolutely do believe that autonomous trucking is an incredibly valuable business model that’s going to be larger than robotaxis and probably closer to being on par with consumer vehicles for the foreseeable future,” Russell said.

Uber says it has received more than 8,500 demands for arbitration as a result of it ditching delivery fees for some Black-owned restaurants via Uber Eats.

Uber Eats made this change in June, following racial justice protests around the police killing of George Floyd, an unarmed Black man. Uber Eats said it wanted to make it easier for customers to support Black-owned businesses in the U.S. and Canada. To qualify, the restaurant must be a small or medium-sized business and, therefore, not part of a franchise. In contrast, delivery fees are still in place for other restaurants.

In one of these claims, viewed by TechCrunch, a customer alleges Uber Eats violates the Unruh civil Rights Act by “charging discriminatory delivery fees based on race (of the business owner).” That claim seeks $12,000 as well as a permanent injunction that would prevent Uber from continuing to offer free delivery from Black-owned restaurants.

“We’re proud to support black-owned businesses with this initiative, as we know they’ve disproportionately been impacted by the health crisis,” Uber spokesperson Meghan Casserly said in a statement to TechCrunch. “We heard loud and clear from consumers this was a feature they wanted—and we’ll continue to make it a priority.”

The website soliciting customers says eligible people can make up to $4,000 in compensation if they have paid a delivery fee in California since June 4, 2020.

The arbitration demands are not super surprising, given that Sen. Ted Cruz said he expected Uber to face discrimination lawsuits from restaurants without Black ownership.

It’s also worth noting that the representative for the customer listed in the complaint is Consovoy McCarthy, whose partners include President Donald Trump lawyer William Consovoy and others.

TechCrunch has reached out to Consovoy McCarthy and will update this story if we hear back.

These complaints are reminiscent of one Microsoft is facing, though not at as high of a level. Earlier this month, the U.S. Department of Labor essentially accused Microsoft of reverse racism (not a real thing) for committing to hire more Black people at its predominantly white company.

Meanwhile, this is just one of many legal battles Uber is facing these days. On the worker side of Uber’s business, a California appeals court judge recently upheld a ruling granting a preliminary injunction to force both Uber and Lyft to reclassify their workers as employees. However, that has yet to go into effect. That means all eyes are on Proposition 22, a California ballot measure backed by Uber, Lyft, DoorDash and Instacart that seeks to keep gig workers classified as independent contractors.

What do you call the grey area between a Series A and a Series B? In 2020, when the money is taken on opportunistically, you call it a Series A-1 extension, according to Teampay. Even if the new capital was raised at a new, higher valuation.

At least that’s what Teampay CEO Andrew Hoag has done with his company’s new $5 million investment, adding it onto its September, 2019-era Series A. TechCrunch covered that round, and the company’s $4 million seed round in 2018, keeping tabs on the corporate spend-management company as it grows.

Indeed, Teampay has posted big growth since its Series A was announced, pushing its annual recurring revenue (ARR) up by 320% and its total spend managed up by 800%. The first number implies that it has managed to monetize well as its usage, the second number, has spiked.

Teampay, Hoag said in an interview, wants to help companies control their bank accounts. This has gotten harder in 2020, as companies went from having an office with many employees to many employees in home offices. The rising complexity of running companies in the aftermath of COVID-19 and its economic disruptions has been a boon for the startup, with Teampay seeing its sales cycle cut in half, the CEO said, and bigger companies coming to its door, looking for help.

The startup targets the midmarket with its spend software, helping companies control what Hoag views as a business process problem, not merely an ability-to-spend issue. Teampay doesn’t want to reinvent the corporate card, but instead provide a set of tools to help companies manage their outflows, no matter what format they take (ACH, virtual cards, etc.).

So unlike Divvy, say, or Brex, Teampay generates most of its income from software fees instead of interchange revenues, though the company did tell TechCrunch that it has room to derive more revenues from spend over time. On the topic of competition, Teampay has lots in various forms. Brex and Ramp and Divvy and Airbase, not to mention old-guard products like Concur and Expensify, are in the market.

But with a fresh $5 million led by Fin Venture Capital and participated in by prior investors like Crosscut, and Tribe, and the ubiquitous Precursor, Teampay has new ammunition with which to go hunting.

With this raise, Teampay has now raised $21 million in known equity financing to date. I asked Hoag why the new round is not simply called a Series B. He said that the letter-series round demarcations have lost some of their specificity in 2020 (true), undercutting the main thrust of my quibble, and that this round was too small to be called a Series B (also true).

Instead, he said, Teampay pulled forward a bit of its future Series B on the back of big growth, presumably to help the company do more today in anticipation of its later, more traditionally sized next round.

TechCrunch has covered aggressive extension rounds in recent months, putting Teampay in good company with firms that are doing well, leading to their taking on more capital to go even faster. Let’s see how much further it can amp its ARR before its real Series B.